


On The Edge of Tomorrow

by QueenBookBuff



Series: All Our Tomorrows [1]
Category: That '70s Show
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eating Disorders, F/M, Fluff, Future, Happy, New Beginnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26740222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenBookBuff/pseuds/QueenBookBuff
Summary: Hyde and Jackie run off leaving Kelso behind, what happens next as they start their own forever.This is an afterward to She Belongs to Me Series, you may want to read that first
Relationships: Jackie Burkhart/Steven Hyde
Series: All Our Tomorrows [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946353
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32





	On The Edge of Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first story in what happened next for Jackie Hyde. This will be a four part series, that shows life after they ran away together. I just wasn't quite ready to leave behind the She Belongs to Me Universe. This first one is pretty fluffy, but hold on, we still have some bumps to ride out in the future. 
> 
> I do talk about eating issues, as someone who has a good friend who has struggled please be aware of a possible trigger and my hope that I treated it will all respect.

As much as he hated it, he had always been an early riser. That’s not to say that he got out of bed, the hours between waking from dream to the reality of real life have always been a time for him to settle himself, so he could pull up the Hyde that shows nothing. Those dawn hours were always about calming himself, the fears, the anger, and the knowledge that he had to hide how he felt to protect himself.

Today was no different the sun was just touching the earth, just starting the spread across the dusky ground, for once he wanted to get up and watch it happen. Because today seemed different, today was a new beginning.

He slid open the balcony door and stepped out to the crisp morning, he was bare chested, and his feet bare. He could have cared less, it made him feel alive the cool hitting his body. He leaned on the rail and watched the sun create diamonds on the blues of Lake Michigan. He turned back quickly and stealthy to grab something just inside the room and quietly shut the door again. It would take him years to break this habit with a steady amount of lecturing from Jackie, but he will always love the first cigarette in the morning and will miss it when he finally quits. He cups his hand against the breeze, the stick, inhales and feels that first rush of nicotine hit his system. This he loves, even if he is up before the birds, so he enjoys it and continues to watch the sun dance with the water.

He can’t believe he is here, truly he keeps waiting to wake up and be heartbroken. 24 hours ago he made the decision to make the gamble of his life and merely twelve hours ago, his every fucking dream came true, Jackie forgave him and chose him. 

He closes his eyes contemplating the last previous 12 hours. He had carried a cuddly Jackie in his arms to his Camino and had put her in like she was the most delicate of dolls. To him she was, and he would never stop treating her like that, he glanced back she is still asleep and he smiles softly, he takes another drag and wonders on her, him and the moment that changed it all………..

_His mind is racing, he had just left with Jackie from her rehearsal dinner. He has no idea what to do next. He had not planned for this far, he had wished deeply but never dared to actually believe she would come with him. They are just pulling out of the parking lot when she says_

_“Steven, I need you to take me to the mansion.”_

_He is startled. Jackie doesn’t willing go home, she has long been out of the house and spends as little time as there as possible._

_“Why the mansion?” he asks_

_“I need to get all my stuff I have packed before we leave.”_

_Now he is super confused. Why does she have stuff packed? Why is it at the mansion?_

_“Doll, I’m confused why are we going to the house you haven’t lived in for years to get stuff that shouldn’t be there?”_

_She looks out the window, not making eye contact and says_

_“I’ll explain when we get there.”_

_Her voice is odd and hesitant, it makes him nervous. They basically just had laid it all out, and she was holding something back._

_They pull up to the dark mansion, and she pulls him with her to the front door. They walk into a house obviously not lived in. The furniture covered looking like ghosts in the evening shadows. As she pulls him along he glances in the kitchen, something makes him stop, a deep knowledge of who Jackie is. He looks at her and says,_

_“Hey, Doll Face, I need to grab a drink of water, I’ll be up in a second.”_

_For a minute he thinks she is on to him, but she raises up on her toes like a ballerina ready to take flight and kisses him softly_

_“Please don’t be long” and she walks up the dark stairs to her room._

_He walks into the velvet black dark of what he believes is pretty much an abandoned kitchen and starts opening cupboards. Every one he opens and finds nothing, he can detect dull pissed starting to rise up in him. He is literally yelling “Damn it Jackie!” in his head. So help him God, if he opens that fridge and it is empty, she is a dead woman. He opens it slowly because he almost doesn’t want to see what is or not is inside._

_There sits Apples, Bread and Peanut Butter, Jackie’s go to for fake eating. He closes his eyes and thinks, “Baby, you have to stop this.”_

_He closes the door quietly, and he treks upstairs, all the while trying to calm himself from yelling at her. He opens her door and watches her gathering a few things and his eyes slide to her waist. Jackie on her best day is small, but this is tiny. He could wrap his hands all the way around her, and she had promised. SHE PROMISED, she would stop doing this. In his indignant rage, he forgets that was years ago and many promises have been broken, mostly by him since then._

_“Jackie.” His voice is stern and it surprises her_

_She turns surprised, and she knows, he doesn’t even have to say it, and she goes immediately on the defense._

_“It’s not that big of a deal, I’m just not always hunger. Please don’t make an issue out of this.”_

_Her nonchalance just pisses him off and a significant chapter in the Damn it Jackie lecture series is about to go down_

_“DAMN IT JACKIE! YOU HAVE TO EAT! WHAT THE HELL? YOU PROMISED! YOU HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF”_

_Her eyes flare, and they go white hot and her voice explodes_

_“ARE YOU KIDDING ME? YOU WERE DRINKING YOURSELF TO DEATH. I WAS PICKING YOU UP, I WAS WATCHING YOU DIE IN FRONT OF ME. HOW DARE YOU? HOW DARE YOU! YOU BASTARD. DON’T YOU DARE.”_

_He is rocked. She looks like she wants to kill him but he doesn’t care, she must understand_

_“What don’t you get Jackie? No matter what happens to me, I need you to be okay. I can’t not have you okay. You have to eat. For the love of God. I need to know that you are taking care of yourself. I need that knowledge like I need air. No matter what I’ve thought of Kelso, I would have thought he would have made sure you were well.”_

_The fight completely drops out of him, and he looks at her, tears streaming down her face, and she seethes back out at him_

_“What don’t you get Steven? No matter what happens to me, I need you to be okay. Why do you think I always came and got you? Why do you think I came that night and begged you to stop drinking? I’m sorry, I am. I just didn’t have the will to eat. I was in hell. Steven, it’s no different for me, if you are hurt or gone, I’m done. I won’t go on.”_

_His heart felt a thousand things, but what he latched on to was her not going on. He strode to her and cupped her face and gazed straight into her eyes and said what she had said to him a million times_

_“Jackie look at me. Really look at me. No. Never say that, the very idea of a world you are not in it is my hell. Please no matter what, promise me you will always take care of yourself.”_

_She gazed at him unblinking and whispered “Only if you do the same.”_

_He couldn’t hold back, he knew this wasn’t the time, and he knew he still had so many things to make right, but he grabbed her face and kissed her, and she exploded around him. It could have been three years ago, her legs had come round his waist, and he walked her back to the bed, and just like the first time, because this was a whole different first time of being together, this was the promise of forever._

_As they come back to themselves, Hyde notices several suitcases packed and ready to go._

  
  


_He pulls her face to look at him off his chest, he very much doesn’t want to break the mood, but he doesn’t understand why they are here and why all of her stuff is packed like she is ready to go on the run_

_“Jackie, what the hell is all this? Why are you packed like you are about to go AWOL?”_

_She seems hesitant, almost ashamed, and won’t look at him. That is not allowed. They don’t hide their eyes from each other, especially after what happened 40 minutes ago._

_“Jackie, look at me.” He demands_

_She does, and he sees shame and regret, but she squares her shoulders and tells him_

_“I was serious when I said, I didn’t know if I was going to make it down the aisle. I was packed and ready to go just in case I needed to run. I could barely bring myself to think about life with him. After, our conversation at our spot, after you told me I would always be your grasshopper. I came home and cried. I couldn’t believe I said yes. I said yes to a man I didn’t love, and I am confident, I did it to hurt and piss you off. What type of person does that make me? What type of person does that to another human? I didn’t even think about Michael’s feelings. At that moment, I just wanted you to hurt as bad as I did.”_

_Her whole body is shaking, “I’m terrible a person.”_

_Hyde has known anger, he has known black unfiltered rage, he has felt the desire to hurt and do it without remorse, but the anger at this moment he has for Donna, Kelso and himself is pitch black. Here is Jackie, judging herself for being a terrible person when people have been playing chess with her life and heart._

_He pulls back and looks at her “Jackie, I have a lot to tell you. There are a lot of things you have no idea about, but look at me and I mean really look, because there is no part of me that is saying this to make you feel better. Kelso doesn’t deserve one second of your remorse, and out of all this hell we have been living YOU are the least terrible person there is. I don’t ever want to hear it again.”_

_His tone brokered no argument, and she was actually a bit stunned. He looked into her eyes again, so she would know that he wasn’t messing around. He witnessed the acceptance and kissed her head._

_“Let’s get dressed, get your stuff, it's time to find us a new home, after I feed you.”_

That final thought about food, brings him back. He checks his watch that he is never without and notes that it is just shy of 7, he looks back to see that Jackie has not even stirred, but he makes a note to order breakfast soon, she will not be skipping anymore meals, and again he is saddened by the idea that through this all no one including him noticed Jackie had slowly been slipping away by not eating, not even the two men who claimed to love her. 

The sun is almost up, and he can feel the edge of warmth. It is going to be a beautiful day and that is perfect, it should be, the day should be damn perfect, because Jackie is about to become his wife, and as he takes another drag on his cigarette, no one is more surprised than him it is his wedding day. 

He grinned at the beautiful sky, they had decided to drive to Chicago, figuring they could lose themselves in the city for a few days and figure out what to do next. He had wanted to take her somewhere nice, no matter that she came of her own free will, he had this guilt that he was ruining her wedding day, so he found a hotel with a lake view and popped for the suite.

They had both been exhausted, but once together in bed, they again made love, this time soft and tender, both of them the happiest they had been in ages. As he was about to drift off, Jackie gave him the shock of his life.

_“I am happy that when we get married tomorrow, I have a few of your favorite dresses to choose from, I can even wear my Gypsy dress if you want.” She had said it so matter of fact that he almost answered “Sure”_

_“Wait What? Married? Jackie, what the hell are you talking about?”_

_“We are getting married tomorrow. Tomorrow is my wedding day.”_

_He was pretty sure he was in some other universe_

_“Jackie, I just stole you from another man, we aren’t engaged, and we have a shit ton to work out, most of which is my fault for being a giant dick. I want to marry you and I want it more than anything but I don’t want to start our lives in the hole.”_

_“I’m getting married today Steven James Hyde. It’s supposed to be my wedding day. Believe me, we have a ton of things to discuss, but we are going to do it as a married couple.”_

_She was dead serious, her imploring him to understand, and like Kelso, when she looked like this, there was very little he could deny her. So he agreed that tomorrow Jackie would become his wife._

He knew he had a stupid grin on his face. He was so fucking happy. He knew. HE KNEW, they had so much to fix and heal, but she wanted to do it with him as his wife and for once he was going to go on faith, because Jackie had never failed him, and he wouldn’t fail her now.

He sensed her before he felt her, her mere presence changed the air. He felt her slight arms slide around him, and she laid her face on his back and for a minute, neither moved. Something about this hug felt like forever, he couldn’t explain it, but he knew without a doubt at that moment, this was them, finding their always.

He turned, leaned on the rail, and gathered her close. She was naked but his Zeppelin Tee, her hair tousled and her face still a little sleepy. His blood heated instantly….. This woman, he would never stop wanting her. Never. 

He gave her his signature cocky grin as he tipped her chin to look at him and said the words he said to her a long time ago when the line was crossed all the way

“Be sure. Please be sure. There's no going back. It will never be the same.” 

He sees her face light up as she remembers those words, and she says to him

“I don't want to go back.”

He scoops her up, and he carries her back into the room, to eat, to love one another, to start tomorrow and find the joy of rediscovering each other.


End file.
